Alla tavola non si vecchia.

Literally, this Italian proverb means, "At the table, one does not get old."

Illustrations of the proverb may be found in Italy, where private dining is not the rule.  You take your coffee at a coffee bar, you get home for dinner at midday, you return to the family table for supper, and food awaits you at tables along the streets where you may walk.  At table, you do more than take food and drink.  You are with others, you talk, you laugh, you sigh, you sometimes weep, you reflect, you relax, you are peacefully together.

Being peacefully together is the reason for being at table as often as possible.  Fast food is nice if it means quickly and neatly prepared, served fresh, hot or cold, at the very moment you want it.  But fast food is bad if it means swallowed fast, gobbled, gulped, shot down the gullet like a bullet.  Taking food is as much an art as preparing food.  Modesty and discretion are in order.  Graceful consumption is healthy.  Taking time is called for.  If you take time with your food, you eat better, the food tastes better, you can talk and listen and breathe and be peacefully together with all those at your table and even open your table to all the world.  Christ fed a multitude with a few loaves and fishes, telling families to sit on the grass, to recline and be fed and be enriched.   

Alla tavola non si vecchia. 

You don't grow old at the table.  You take nourishment.  You notice what's going on, you notice where you are, you notice the morning sun or the evening air, you notice that song sparrow or that accordion, you notice others.  You pay attention to the child telling news of the day, or the veteran who replays proverbs for survival.  You are renewed, refreshed, relaxed.  You are not alone, you are not bereft.  You are young, as young as the day you first tasted pizza or had your first lick of ice cream, as awake as the first time someone leaned forward to tell you a secret, and you remember the voice singing a song that filled your heart.